


a mask of chrome and heartaches

by paravin



Series: just a different kind [5]
Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Abuse, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 16:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30108867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paravin/pseuds/paravin
Summary: Four times Glint protected Crow and one time he didn’t need to.
Relationships: The Crow & Glint (Destiny), The Crow/Osiris/Saint-14 (Destiny)
Series: just a different kind [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2180688
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	a mask of chrome and heartaches

**Author's Note:**

> I just think that someone should give Glint a hug
> 
> nothing explicit in this one but some vague references to torture and a brief sex-adjacent miscommunication.
> 
> the Crow/Osiris/Saint part is extremely brief/minor.

Like most ghosts, Pulled Pork spends a long time contemplating his Lightbearer’s first combat encounter.

It’s a popular topic of conversation, both among ghosts like him who have yet to find their partners and among ghosts who want to pass on wisdom from (or brag about) their Guardians. He’s heard the infamous horror story of the new Light who was stomped into a pancake by a Vex gate lord immediately on resurrection and as such, when his Lightbearer wakes with a gasp amid the peaks of the Dreaming City, the ghost is very glad there are no Vex in the area.

They talk for a while, with Pulled Pork giving his well-rehearsed introductory speech and his new Lightbearer asking him a lot of good and not-so-good questions. It doesn’t take him long to decide that the warm bond that comes from having a partner is one of the nicest feelings he’s ever had and he floats happily at the Lightbearer’s shoulder as they venture out.

They find themselves in combat before they’ve even made it half a mile.

As far as first encounters go, a thrall is a pretty good one. Sure, they’re aggressive and kind of scary up-close, but when Pulled Pork made his list of Best Enemies to Face First, thralls were definitely in the top twenty.

However, that objective assessment is far less reassuring when he has a newly-risen and wide-eyed Lightbearer at his side. 

“Um, ghost?” the Lightbearer whispers, hiding behind a rock. “What is that?”

The thrall ambles about below them, its head twitching as it sniffs out prey. 

“That’s a thrall,” Pulled Pork whispers back. “It’s a part of the Hive. They’re really into killing things! Something about worms, I think. It seems unhygienic.”

The Lightbearer nods and Pulled Pork says in encouragement, “You’ve got this. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of shots to take it down.”

“With what gun?” the Lightbearer hisses.

Pulled Pork pauses. “Oh.”

In most of the stories he’s heard, Guardians tend to just happen upon conveniently placed weapons before any real fighting starts. As such, when the thrall moves in the direction of his extremely unarmed Lightbearer, Pulled Pork starts to panic a little. 

“Okay,” he says, trying to project an air of confidence. “We can do this. And if we can’t, I can revive you again.” He rises up from behind the rock and narrows his eye at the thrall. “Maybe see if you can find a tree branch or something to hit it with?”

The thrall bounds closer, hunched and chittering, and Pulled Pork puffs his shell up as wide as he can. He’s already quite attached to his Lightbearer; he would prefer him not to be torn to shreds by a hungry thrall on his first day.

The thrall turns towards the Lightbearer and lets out a furious shriek.

Pulled Pork parks himself in front of his new partner and shrieks back. Louder.

The thrall recoils. 

Still riding the wave of what apparently passes for adrenaline, Pulled Pork lets out a second bloodthirsty screech before looking back at his Lightbearer with pride. “Okay, now hit it!”

With some trepidation, the Lightbearer steps forward and punches the thrall in the face. 

There’s no light behind it — he hasn’t even had a chance to explain how double-jumps work yet, let alone melee attacks — but the thrall stumbles backward with a pained howl. 

Unfortunately, the distraction doesn’t last long and Pulled Pork ducks out of the way with a yelp when the thrall launches itself forward again, reaching out for his Lightbearer.

It’s less of a glorious battle and more of a slap fight as the two of them flail at each other with outstretched arms. However, when the dust settles, his Lightbearer is victorious.

“You did it!” Pulled Pork swoops around him in a circle, beaming in triumph. “I knew you’d be good at this!”

The Lightbearer seems slightly shellshocked as he looks between his hands and the disintegrating corpse of the thrall. There are a couple of claw marks across his face and Pulled Pork sends out a pulse of healing light as he hovers at the Lightbearer’s side. “Oh, don’t worry about the body. They do that. I think it’s—”

Before he can finish his explanation of Hive decomposition, there’s a roar from the bushes behind them. 

Both Lightbearer and ghost back off slowly as a new, larger enemy emerges, dragging its sword behind it. 

“Should I be fighting that?” the Lightbearer asks, dubious. 

“Nope,” Pulled Pork says helpfully. “That’s a Hive knight. They’re really big.”

The Lightbearer gulps as the knight draws closer. “I’d noticed.”

“You can start running now,” Pulled Pork tells him. “Try to strafe!”

His Lightbearer obliges, taking off at speed down the hillside with Pulled Pork zooming along in his wake. 

Even with the threat of impending death, the warmth of their bond is a constant comfort and Pulled Pork chirps in delight as he reassures his new friend, “We can work up to those. As soon as you figure out how grenades work, we’ll come back and kick its butt!”  


———

  
“Ms Petra Venj!”

From the way Petra nearly topples off the rock she’s lying on, Glint’s shout comes as a surprise. Still, she looks up from the scope of her sniper rifle and Glint gives her a cheerful wave. “Hi, Ms Petra Venj!”

She’s busy hunting and doesn’t want to be disturbed. Glint knows this. Unfortunately, the person she’s hunting is Crow, and so Glint is here to disturb.

“Do I know—” Petra starts, squinting at him in the darkness before her eye widens in realisation. “Oh!”

She lapses into a rare smile and rolls over to sit up, sniper rifle abandoned. Far off in the distance, Crow continues to unearth the cache Spider sent them to retrieve.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember me,” Glint says. “It was a long time ago.”

Petra smiles. “Everything feels like a long time ago here. Pork Pie, right?”

“Pulled Pork,” he corrects. “But I go by Glint now!”

He can’t help the rush of pride at the name, even all these months later, and he floats down to her eye level as she teases, “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Mr Glint.”

His plates ripple with delight at the joke. He knows the Awoken aren’t necessarily fond of Guardians, but as a lone ghost, they’ve always been kind to him. 

Petra relaxes a fraction, folding one leg up and resting her arm on her knee as she looks him over. “How’s that new shell treating you?”

It’s hardly new anymore, not after Spider’s modifications, but Glint remembers the gift like it was yesterday, a Reef-made shell offered up with no expectation of anything in return. 

He wonders how hurt Petra will be when she finds out how he repaid her.

“It’s excellent,” he says. “Thank you again for the gift.”

Petra’s smile brightens. “It was my pleasure. It wasn’t like I was going to use it anyway — it’s not quite my size.”

Glint laughs. Despite the tension around her eyes, she seems happier than Glint remembers, and he moves in closer as he asks, “Did you ever find the person you were looking for?”

Something flits through Petra’s eyes and the levity in her voice is strained when she counters, “I thought I was supposed to be asking you that? You were the one on the hunt for your partner.”

Glint lets the question hang for a moment, not quite willing to lie to Petra just yet, and he’s glad when she’s the one to fill the silence. 

“But yes. I did,” she says softly. “She has yet to return but I found her again. Just to know she’s alive…” She exhales, blinking rapidly, and gives Glint a watery smile. “I hope you get to experience the same feeling soon. Your partner will be out there somewhere, I’m sure.”

‘Out there’ in this case is across the bay in the sights of Petra’s rifle, and Glint thrums with relief when he feels a gentle tug on his light from Crow to signal their departure.

“I’m really happy for you, Ms Petra Venj,” Glint says honestly. “I need to go now but I hope you get to be with her again soon.”

“Me too, Glint,” Petra says with a sigh. “In the meantime, I’ll be here if you run into any trouble.”

With a last nod of gratitude, Glint disappears. He decides against telling her just how much trouble he and Crow are already in.  


———

  
While none of Crow’s deaths have been enjoyable from Glint’s perspective, he thinks this type of death might be his least favorite.

Even after wandering the system for hundreds of years, the depth of people’s cruelty still takes him by surprise sometimes. He’s heard Spider’s rationale for it — _nothing as profitable as pain and suffering_ — but judging by the fact that Crow gets a (meager) reward for enduring this treatment, he suspects even Spider knows how much of a toll it takes.

That doesn’t stop it from happening though. Every month, Spider accepts a large payment from a vengeful visitor and every month, that visitor then gets the pleasure of killing Crow as slowly and painfully as they like.

It’s business rather than punishment — Spider’s always very clear on that — but that doesn’t make Glint feel any better when he hides in the vents each time to listen to Crow’s screams echo through the safehouse.

Today’s visitor is a Guardian, a warlock named Rosco. From what Glint’s been able to pick up from hacking Spider’s encrypted comms, he lost his fireteam to Fikrul, leader of the Scorn, and is eager to take out his grief on Fikrul’s creator. 

Glint can read the nervous excitement in Rosco’s body as he strides down the winding hallways to where Crow has been stationed. His heartrate is elevated, his fingers flexing in anticipation as he checks the ammunition in his gun, and Glint almost feels bad when he activates his voice duplication software. (Almost.)

“Hello, dead thing!”

It’s a bit too cheerful to be accurate but from his position in the pipes, Glint watches Rosco freeze at the mimicry of Fikrul’s voice. He draws his gun, turning in tight circles as he searches for a target, and Glint’s recording of Fikrul’s laugh reverberates through the hallway.

It took a few days to construct the duplication. He followed multiple strike teams of Guardians as they wound their way through the bowels of the Shore, and while they put Fikrul down again and again, Glint gathered enough data to build a reasonable imitation. 

It won’t hold up under any real scrutiny but from the panic in Rosco’s movements, Glint’s hope that fear would win out over common sense seems to be coming to fruition.

“S-Show yourself!” Rosco stammers. “Face me!”

Glint tuts in Fikrul’s voice. “Now you are brave, dead thing? Why not face me instead of this corpse?”

Rosco squares his shoulders. “What, don’t want me hurting your precious _father_? He made you! He deserves worse than what he got!”

“Father is gone,” Glint says firmly. The naming choice is no less uncomfortable when he’s the one saying it rather than the Scorn. “This is a new dead thing. Not ours.”

He pauses, hoping desperately that Rosco will see reason, but Rosco’s grip just tightens on the gun. 

“You expect me to believe that?” he snaps. “He brought you back from the fucking grave — what’s to say he hasn’t done the same to himself?”

So accustomed to protesting Crow’s innocence to any Guardians who will listen, Glint has to restrain himself this time. He thinks of the way Crow’s hands trembled when Glint revived him after the last visit from a Guardian, the way his breathing grew shallow with panic at any hint of void energy for weeks afterwards, and he answers with cruelty of his own when he says, “So you are a coward?”

Rosco hesitates, clutching his gun tighter, and Glint pushes, “You choose a weak puppet for your revenge instead of your real enemy?”

“I- He…”

“Is that how you survived?” he hisses, and tells himself the darkness in his tone is just the software. “Did you hide when your friends died at my hands? Were you waiting for an easier target?”

“Shut up!” Rosco’s breathing comes quick and fast as he whips around again. “You shut your fucking mouth! I- I was there with them!”

“And yet only you survived.” Fikrul’s breath crackles out through the recording. “Which is it, dead thing? Were you too cowardly to try to save them, or too pathetic to succeed?”

Rosco recoils as though he’s been hit. He backs up against the wall, looking down the hallway like a cornered animal, and Glint shivers with discomfort even as he plays Fikrul’s laugher again. “Run away, dead thing. If you want to truly avenge your friends, I will be waiting.”

Rosco hesitates. 

For a long moment, Glint thinks he’s failed, that all his work to protect Crow was for nothing, but he blinks in relief when Rosco turns on his heel and goes running back out of the tunnels. 

Glint slumps in the pipe, his shell scraping against the metal as he tries to stop the light inside him from pulsing quite so frantically. He tracks Rosco’s signal — a few words to Spider, a pause to vomit behind a rock, a near-sprint back to his ship — and it’s only when it fades that he lets himself relax. 

There’s still the risk of ordinary Guardians, or Spider, or even next month’s visitor, but as he makes his way down towards the cell where Crow’s being held, Glint’s glad to have spared him this one death at least.  


———

  
“Who’s there?”

The shout comes from the ghost rather than the titan, and Glint peeks out from behind his crate with a sheepish little wave. “Don’t shoot?” he says hopefully. “I’m friendly.”

The titan lowers her gun and Glint can hear her smile even beneath the helmet. “Hey there, buddy. Don’t worry, we won’t hurt you.” She slips the gun back in her holster as her ghost swoops forward to inspect him. “Flux, be nice.”

Flux makes an impatient noise as she scans over his shell but Glint tilts away before she can pick up on the bomb sitting beneath his plates. 

“You’re Pulled Pork, right?” Flux asks. “I’ve heard about you. Are you still looking for your Guardian?”

“Yep!” Glint lies. “But in the meantime, I found a stray Cabal warbeast. I've been helping him; I think we’re friends now!”

“Oh, nice!” the titan replies, sounding genuinely happy for him. Glint tries not to think about how a stray dog always gets a better reaction than Crow does. “I always feel so bad for ghosts who haven’t found their other halves yet. I’m glad you’ve got someone to keep you company while you’re looking.” 

She looks around, as though the fictional warbeast might be hiding behind a crate. “Is it here somewhere?”

“He’s resting,” Glint says, which is at least partially the truth. “He’s had a rough time lately.”

“Oh no,” the titan says with a noise of sympathy. “Was it the Cabal? They must work those poor dogs so hard to make them end up like that.”

“They’re _warbeasts_ , Marni,” Flux says, with notably less sympathy. “They love eating people. It’s their favorite thing.”

“Not my one,” Glint insists. “He’s much happier when there’s no fighting.”

The titan — Marni, apparently — regards at him with compassion, and her ghost pokes her firmly in the arm. “We are not adopting a warbeast.”

“Of course not,” Marni says, offended. “I wouldn’t take Pulled Pork’s friend away from him like that.”

Flux sighs. Glint beams. 

“I don’t want to impose,” he says, flitting closer, “but I was wondering if you had any rations you could spare.”

Flux’s eye narrows in suspicion, and Glint tips his plates up in a gesture of surrender. “Nothing you need, of course. It’s just that he’s injured and even though he doesn’t complain, I know he’s hungry.” He sags a little. “I keep looking for food but I haven’t been finding much lately, and he—”

He pauses, bobbing in the air. Every time he runs a scan, Crow seems to be getting skinnier, forced to work harder on less food, and sadness coils in his core at the knowledge that lying to other Guardians is the only method Glint has found to help him. 

“It doesn’t even need to be fresh,” he says quietly. “He’ll eat anything at this point. I just- I don’t want to lose him.”

“Oh, sweetheart…”

Marni’s voice is soft with pity and for a moment Glint lets himself pretend that someone else cares about Crow even a fraction as much as he does. 

He sinks lower in the air, resting by Marni’s side when she drops to a seat and beckons Flux over. “Let me see what we’ve got here.”

Blue lights twirl outward from Flux’s shell and Marni scrolls through them as she says, “Oh, we’ve got some jerky, if that would be any good? Honestly you’d be saving me from myself with that one.”

Glint nods eagerly. Flux sends it into his inventory and he can’t keep his shell from spinning in relief when he checks the nutritional readout. “Thank you.” 

Already running calculations on how much energy the supplies will give Crow and how many days he can make it last, he raises up in the air again with a polite bow. “I should get back.”

“Wait, wait!” Marni calls. “You can take this too.” 

What looks like a large spinfoil-wrapped brick appears in her hand, and Glint pauses, bemused. “Is it explosives?”

“What? No,” she says with a grin. “It’s fruitcake. One of the civilians in my building made it for me as a thanks for getting his cat out of a tree. He worked so hard on it and it looks so good; I just didn’t have the heart to tell him I was allergic to cherries.”

“She died twice trying to eat it,” Flux says with a sigh. “Please take it. You’d be doing me a favor.”

She transmats it into his inventory before he can think to refuse and Glint looks up at them both with gratitude. “Thank you so much. He- This will help him. A lot.”

“Our pleasure,” Marni says. “Take care of your friend, okay? I just hope he can return the favor for you some day.”

Glint can’t tell her Crow has already returned it ten times over, especially now when Crow’s working so hard just to keep Spider from blowing him up, but he gives her one last nod anyway.

By the time Glint makes it back to the hideout, Crow’s bent over his worktable, already smudged with grease from his latest attempt at constructing a lure. He looks over when Glint flies in, and Glint tries not to react to the sight of the fresh bruise blossoming around Crow’s eye. 

“You have fun out there?” Crow asks with a smile. “Please tell me you didn’t try to duel any shanks this time.”

“That was one time,” Glint says, pouting, “and I would’ve won if you haven’t stopped me.” 

Crow laughs. “Next time you can fight all the shanks you like, just as long as I’m there as back-up.” 

“Deal.” 

Glint wedges himself happily in Crow’s hood and hums at the warmth. Crow doesn’t know the details of his expeditions, just thinks all Glint’s findings come from storage caches that have been mysteriously overlooked, but Glint doesn’t want to worry him with the truth. 

He’ll slip him the food later, when Spider’s cameras aren’t on them, but for now, the comfort of the titan’s kindness lingers as he reports, “It went well. I was lucky.”  


———

  
On the rare days when they have no assignments from the Vanguard, Glint likes to talk to Osiris.

He’s not under any illusions that he can replace Osiris’ ghost — Sagira’s intellect was famed even before she found her Guardian — but he’s discovered he can be useful when it comes to research. After wandering the system for so many centuries, he’s seen a lot of things. And sure, he doesn’t always know which of those things are relevant and which are pointless, but Osiris seems to value his suggestions nonetheless.

Another benefit of working with Osiris is that when Osiris isn’t around, Glint can snuggle up on top of the heater in his office for the ghost equivalent of a nap.

He’s dreaming idly about whether Hive worms could wear ghost shells when he hears a thump from downstairs, followed by a pained cry. 

He’s in the air in a heartbeat when he recognises the cry as Crow’s.

His shell spins with worry as he darts downstairs. The house is empty, save for Crow and Saint, but Glint whirrs as he tries to work out what he missed that would mean Crow getting hurt. By the time he makes it downstairs, he’s ruled out an attack from other Guardians, a Cabal assassination, or an attempted abduction by Spider, but his eye goes wide when he finally shoves the kitchen door open with his shell. 

Saint has Crow’s arm twisted roughly behind his back as he pins him against the countertop. Crow is struggling against the grip, even as Saint’s hand threads through his hair, and Glint dashes forward with a cry of outrage. 

“Let go of him!”

He isn’t sure what he’s hoping to do but after years of watching Crow suffer at Spider’s hands, he isn’t about to stand by and let it happen here too. 

He rams hard into Saint’s face. The impact jarrs his shell, making him spin unsteadily in the air, but he’s glad to see that Saint stumbles backward, releasing his hold on Crow as he presses one hand to his forehead. “What—”

“Stay away from him!” Glint demands, squaring up for a fight. “You- You’ll have to go through me!”

It’s less threatening than he’d like, especially since he’s about the size of Saint’s palm, but it’s Crow’s hand that curls around his shell rather than Saint. “Glint!” 

Crow tugs him back gently. When Glint looks up at him, there’s no blood and no bruises, and his shell twitches in confusion. “I- I thought he was hurting you.”

“I’m fine,” Crow promises. His eyes dart to Saint as he chooses his words carefully. “It was just a game. Saint would never hurt me.”

“Oh.” 

Glint’s plates contract in embarrassment. He knows that Crow and Saint (and Osiris, when he’s home) are together, and he has a decent idea of some of their preferences, but he feels incredibly stupid for leaping to the wrong conclusion.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. 

He definitely doesn’t deserve the kiss to his shell he gets from Crow in response, but when Crow’s hand loosens, he rotates to look at Saint, who has nudged the plate on his forehead back into place. “I’m so sorry, Mr Saint.” 

With one last squeeze to his shell, Crow slips past him to offer Saint his own apologies by way of a soft kiss. 

Glint sinks down to rest on the countertop as Crow speaks quietly to Saint, “I’m going to take a shower.” He holds Saint’s gaze for a moment. “Please don’t be angry at Glint. It’s my fault; I should’ve told him what was happening.”

“Of course I am not angry,” Saint says, almost chiding. “I would never be. Go shower — I will look after your ghost.”

Clearly expecting to take Glint with him, Crow glances back before he leaves and Glint gives him a little nod in response. Despite Saint’s size, he’s one of the most gentle titans Glint has ever met. 

(That said, while he isn’t afraid of Saint’s anger, he knows Saint’s disappointment is just as potent.)

“I’m sorry,” he says again once Crow is out of earshot. The words are a tangle inside him and spill out in a rush. “I was resting and I heard him cry out so I panicked, but then I saw you and I know you wouldn’t hurt him but with all the corruption on the Shore, I thought that maybe—”

“It is okay.” 

Saint’s voice is firm, but the weight of it swamps him like a blanket rather than hitting like a hammer. Glint’s eye flickers as he’s scooped up in one massive hand and he feels the soothing thrum of Saint’s systems when Saint lifts him to eye level.

“I’m sorry.” He thinks maybe the more he says it, the less wretched he’ll feel. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“Hush,” Saint says. “You never need to apologise for protecting your Guardian.” For once, Glint feels like he’s the one being scanned as Saint’s gaze sweeps over him. “You have looked after him on your own for a long time, yes?”

Glint lifts his plates in a tiny shrug. “We had each other.”

Saint makes a noise of understanding. “It must have been difficult.” 

Saint doesn’t know the details, all the lies Glint told to keep Crow safe, all the pain they tried to shoulder for each other, but just from the quiet sincerity of his tone, Glint aches to tell him everything.

He flies forward before he really knows what he’s doing. Rather than aiming for Saint’s head this time, he buries himself in the crook of Saint’s neck and shivers at the warmth that courses through him.

Saint’s fingers come up to stroke the outer ridge of his shell, and for the first time, Glint finds that he believes every word when Saint murmurs, “You did a good job, little light. Crow is very lucky to have you.”


End file.
